Editor's letter: No more questions over future of Cupra and Seat

Since its breakaway in 2018, Cupra has stormed up the sales charts. Not so for Seat, but it still has a future

What’s Spanish for 'meltdown'? That's what Seat chairman Thomas Schäfer caused at the Munich motor show last September when asked about the long-questioned future of the country's national car maker. 

In a roundtable interview at which Autocar was present and reported his comments from first, Schäfer said “the future of Seat is Cupra”; investments would go to Cupra and Seat would get a “new role” that would be rooted more in different kinds of e-mobility.

An Australian journalist interviewed Seat and Cupra CEO Wayne Griffiths later that same day, and when the stories were put to him, he said the quotes had been “misunderstood”.

Schäfer himself wrote on LinkedIn something of a love letter to Seat later that week, which began: “Despite inaccurate reports in some media, the Seat brand is stronger than ever”.

Yours truly felt a bit perplexed by the whole situation, as nobody who was in that room felt the original points had been misunderstood or were reported inaccurately. 

Nine months later, I at last got a chance to sit down myself with Griffiths for a varied and in-depth interview, which I’m pleased to say did at last clear everything up, as he was unambiguous about the Seat brand's future.

There are no new Seat models currently in the pipeline, only Cupras, which are simply more profitable. Seat’s time will come again when electric cars can be sold profitably at the €20,000 mark as an entry-level brand, but that’s not happening any time soon. 

The original quotes undoubtedly created great interest in Spain, and they still get referenced now. Griffiths revealed that even the king of Spain, whose first car was a Seat Ibiza, recently asked him to clarify and reassure him that the brand wasn’t going anywhere. 

"There is room for both brands, and one doesn't exclude the other," he said. "Sometimes you have to make priorities. The discussion is now over for most people. I think certainly it is in Spain."

The question over Seat detracts from what should be a positive story around Cupra, although outside of Spain there is some confusion about the fact that 'Seat' not only refers to the Seat brand but also to a group containing the Seat and Cupra brands - and all the manufacturing and R&D facilities, which have been subject to recent €10 billion investments from parent company the Volkswagen Group.

As one brand in the Seat group shrinks and the other grows, it’s hard to say for sure whether sales of one are simply replacing another. Yet what can't be questioned is that Cupra is going to boost profitability and increase margins. The Seat group’s first-quarter results were the best it has ever posted. 

Cupra’s positioning feels in a good sweet spot where the likes of Mini and Polestar also operate: cool and classy without being flash or premium. 

“I'm confident that we're onto something really big,” said Griffiths. “The cars are good, but the brand is big. We've hit a nerve with a new brand, and if we keep that momentum, I think we can go really far."

So much of Seat's recent history has been about survival and finding its place not only within the car market but also within the Volkswagen Group.

Not so with Cupra, which creates cars that are clearly distinct from Volkswagen and Skoda and arguably now more desirable than several from Audi.

Its ambitions remarkably already extend to breaking into North America – perhaps the world's toughest market – by the end of the decade, complete with bespoke models and local production. 

Griffiths himself refers to the scepticism that met Cupra when it was announced as a standalone brand back in 2018, built out of what ostensibly was a trim level for the Seat Ateca back then.

"Everybody said 'let's see', as people had tried it before and nobody had really cracked it. We seem to have cracked it - but I'm not saying it's done yet."